Promptly next morning at the designated hour, came the little note
promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks
by the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an
adaptation for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing
over it--it was unsealed--and finding it entirely unintelligible, I
took it for granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if
that failed, strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate
with Mrs. Blake. An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained
unclosed. A half hour more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound
had come from their precincts save now and then a mumbled word of
parley between the father and son, a short command to the daughter,
or a not-to-be-restrained oath of annoyance from one or both of the
heavy-limbed brutes as something was said or done to disturb them in
their indolent repose. At last my impatience was to be no longer
restrained. Rising, I took a bold resolution. If the mountain would
not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain. Taking my
letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded to the door marked with
the ominous red cross and knocked.

A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet
as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent
position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of
despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of
heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful
adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the
quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform
all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from
following in the ways of their infamy.

"Ah miss," said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white
face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, "I beg your
pardon but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are
so weak with the work I've been doing that I cannot read it. It is
from some one I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the
words for me and so relieve an old man from his anxiety."

The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the
door. "Certainly," said she, "if I can," taking the paper in her
hand.

"Just let me get a squint at that first," said a sullen voice behind
her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and
tore the paper out of her grasp.

"You are too suspicious," murmured she, looking after him with the
first assumption of that air of power and determination which I had
heard so eloquently described by the man who loved her. "There is
nothing in those lines which concerns us; let me have them back."

"You hold your tongue," was the brutal reply as the rough man opened
the folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within.
"Blast it! it's French," was his slow exclamation after a moment
spent in this way. "See," and he thrust it towards his father who
stood frowning heavily a few feet off.

"Of course, it's French," cried the girl. "Would you write a note in
English to father there? The man's friends are French like himself,
and must write in their own language."

"Here take it and read it out," commanded her father; "and mind you
tell us what it means. I'll have nothing going on here that I don't
understand."

"Read me the French words first, miss," said I. "It is my letter and I
want to know what my friend has to say to me."

Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and
began to read:

"Thanks!" I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the
sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and
realized that the words were for her. "My friend says he will pay my
week's rent and bids me be at home to receive him," said I, turning
upon the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look
of meek unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have
brought down the house.

"Is that what those words say, you?" asked the father, pointing over
her shoulder to the paper she held.

"I will translate for you word by word what it says," replied she,
nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though
I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had
visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. "Calmez vous, mon
amie. Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche.
He loves you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez
heureuse. In four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et
surtout soyez maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all
preserve your self-possession. It is the French way of expressing
one's self," observed she. "I am glad your friend is disposed to help
you," she continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. "I am
afraid you needed it."

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks
to her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was
utterly dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose
contents you must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my
whole chance of expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such
words as those before these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at
the conclusion did she with a word make its language seem consistent
with the meaning I had given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation
to her, I hurried to my room, there to count out the minutes of
another long hour in anxious expectation of her making that endeavor
to communicate with me, which her new hopes and fears must force her
to feel almost necessary to her existence. At length, my confidence in
her was rewarded. Coming out into the hall, she hurried past my door,
her finger on her lip. I immediately rose and stood on the threshold
with another paper in my hand, which I had prepared against this
opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in her hand, and warning
her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual occupation. The words
I had written were as follows:

At or as near the time as possible of your brother's going out,
you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with
your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you,
and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You
are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid
down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no;
but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without
bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not
soften toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one
inquiring look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward
on the floor, and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its
effect. Bowing her head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand
on her heart, looked up and glided from the room. I took up that
paper and tore it into bits.

And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the
door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping
of my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his
work, and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before
two o'clock my assistants began to arrive. First, Mr. Gryce appeared
on the scene and was stowed away in a large room on the other side of
mine. Next, two of the most agile, as well as muscular men in the
force who, thanks to having taken off their shoes in the lower hall,
gained the same refuge without awakening the suspicions of those we
were anxious to surprise. Lastly, the landlady who went into the
closet to which I had bidden Mrs. Blake retire after leaving in my
room the articles I had mentioned.

All was now ready and waiting for the departure of the youngest
Schoenmaker. Would he disappoint us and remain at home that day? Had
any suspicions been awakened in the stolid breasts of these men, that
would serve to make them more watchful than usual against running
unnecessary risks? No; at or near the time for the clock to strike
two, their door opened and the tread of a lumbering foot was heard in
the hall. On it came, passing my room with a rude stamping that
gradually grew less distinct as the hardy rough went down the
corridor, brushing the wall behind which Mr. Gryce and his men lay
concealed with his thick cane, and even stopping to light his pipe in
front of the small apartment where cowered our good landlady with her
eternal basket of mending in her lap.

At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into a
small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable
impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few
minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as
I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her
father's presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of
apparel--taking care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a
pocket handkerchief to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by
the sneeze which at that very moment I took care should assail me)
walked boldly back to the room from which she had just come.

The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a
simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful
father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an
encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together
with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I
succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window
without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope you are
not going to bark too."

I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards
the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention
sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as
he sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by
surprise, and that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature
he was, seemed to me to be the only safe method before us. But,
whether from the sullenness of his disposition or the very evident
laziness of the moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and
hearing or thinking I did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his
companions down the hall, I allowed myself to give way to a
suppressed exclamation, and leaning forward, pressed my forehead
against the pane of glass before me as if something of absorbing
interest had just taken place in the street beneath.

His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode
towards me, muttering,

"What's up now? What's that you are looking at?" reaching my side
just as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a
quick leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force
he could not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge
strength of an unusually developed muscular organization.

"You, you girl there, are to blame for this!" came mingled with curses
from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors.
"Only let me get my hand well upon you once--Damn it!" he suddenly
exclaimed, dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get
his mouth down to my ear, "go and rub that sign out on the door or
I'll--you know what I'll do well enough. Do you hear?"

Rising, still with face averted, I proceeded to do what he asked. But
in another moment seeing that he had been effectually bound and
gagged, I took out the piece of red chalk I had kept in my pocket,
and deliberately chalked it on again, after which operation I came
back and took my seat as before on the low stool by the window.

The object now was to secure the second rascal in the same way we had
the first; and for this purpose Mr. Gryce ordered the now helpless
giant to be dragged into the adjoining small room formerly occupied
by Mrs. Blake, where he and his men likewise took up their station
leaving me to confront as best I might, the surprise and
consternation of the one whose return we now awaited.

I did not shrink. With that brave woman's garments drawn about me,
something of her dauntless spirit seemed to invade my soul, and
though I expected--But let that come in its place, I am not here to
interest you in myself or my selfish thoughts.

A half hour passed; he had never lingered away so long before, or so
it seemed, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have to keep up
this strain of nerve for hours, when the heavy tread was again heard
in the hall, and with a blow of the fist that argued anger or a
brutal impatience, he flung open the door and came in, I did not turn
my head.

"Where's father?" he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from
the door.

Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of
danger in the air,--which while not amounting to apprehension is
often sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,--he
stood glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude,
but made no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of
the window, made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one
on the opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath
that rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon
me with a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands
of the watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came
down upon my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow
the seeds of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells
ever since. But this termination of the affair was no more than I had
feared from the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs.
Blake from the wrath of these men, as from any requirements of the
situation I had assumed the disguise I then wore. I therefore did not
allow this mishap to greatly trouble me, unpleasant as it was at the
time, but, as soon as ever I could do so, rose from the floor and
throwing off my strange habiliments, proceeded to finish up to my
satisfaction, the work already so successfully begun.